University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Post Presence
January 22, 2009 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Jan. 22, 2009
By Adam Lucas
In this space, I am supposed to report what I saw in Wednesday night's 94-70 shellacking of a good Clemson team.
Here is the problem: the best thing I saw, the most glorious moment, didn't come when the ball was in play. It didn't happen when Tyler Hansbrough refused to let a dentist look in his mouth at his newly jiggling tooth and instead barked, "I'm fine!" and then stormed back to the court. It wasn't when suddenly reborn Wayne Ellington aggressively took the ball to the basket and attempted a one-handed dunk over 6-foot-8 Jerai Grant.
No, it was when Ty Lawson scored in transition to give Carolina 42-38 lead with less than two minutes in the first half. You looked up, and there, dancing goofily down the court, waving his arms above his head, was Deon Thompson.
It looked like a player having a blast. And it was a glorious sight.
Thompson scored 15 points and grabbed five rebounds. Those numbers are almost insignificant. These numbers matter more. They belong to Trevor Booker: 3-of-6, 4 rebounds (just 1 offensive), 7 points, 28 minutes.
The only way the Tar Heels could stop Booker last season was through foul trouble, as he piled up 14 fouls in three games. Between whistles, though, he posted double-doubles in every single one of those games, pulling down a staggering 18 offensive rebounds.
"He's just 6-6, so he's lower to the ground than I am," Thompson said. "He's got a strong upper body, so when he's pushing it's tough to box out and grab those rebounds."
Maybe Thompson didn't collect as many of those boards as you would like. But he also prevented Booker from getting them, allowing him just one measly offensive rebound, and finding him every time a shot was released to put a body on him and push him away from the goal. If you're wondering why the Clemson offense wasn't very consistent, maybe it was because one of their biggest second-shot artists wasn't able to work his way to the rim.
That's what happened late in the first half, when Thompson eliminated Booker from rebound contention directly under the Clemson basket. Then, Thompson turned and ran, sprinting past several Tigers, arriving under the Carolina basket just in time to receive a pass from Lawson and jam through a dunk. That's 94 feet of running, and it's amazing how many opportunities that type of hustle creates.
"With the style of play of Clemson's team, that's how they want to get up and down," Thompson said. "Well, that's what we do every day. So for me it's easy to run the floor and post up in the middle of the lane."
Posting in the middle of the lane is exactly what Booker never did. Not once did he catch the ball on the low block, where he's especially dangerous. Instead, he most often received it away from the paint, and his discomfort in that area was obvious. On one possession, David Potter tried valiantly to get him the ball. But Thompson kept pushing, kept leaning, and eventually Booker had to receive the pass two steps outside the lane. He had no offensive options, so even with the shot clock melting away, he had to get rid of the ball, and the Tigers picked up a shot clock violation.
Early in the second half, Clemson made a concerted effort to get their big man involved in the offense. After he attempted just three shots in 17 minutes in the first half, he shot three times in the first 150 seconds of the second period. But just one of those went in, and meanwhile Thompson was again sprinting the full 94 feet to pick up another dunk that gave Carolina a 64-46 advantage with 13 minutes remaining.
"I had to do my defensive work early," Thompson said. "Once he catches the ball he's a beast, so I wanted to make it tough for him to catch the ball. I tried to front him and wall him off in the post. When he got the ball, my teammates did a great job with helping down."
Those teammates are often the beneficiary of a blissful Thompson. Later in the game, he threw perhaps the first 50-foot assist of his career, hitting Bobby Frasor on a fly pattern for a layup. That's the player his teammates often see in the summer, and the player Roy Williams knows he can be.
It's been a curious few months for Thompson, who was terrific before Christmas, then disappeared, and now may be reemerging. Through it all, Williams--who Thompson considers a father figure and counts as one of the most influential people in his life--has handled him perfectly, constantly encouraging, always believing.
One ill-timed snap might have buried the California native for the season. Instead, there are performances like Wednesday, and maybe, just maybe, more to come. It's not about what he doesn't do. It's about what he does do. And if he can erase the other team's best post threat, score a little, and share the paint with Hansbrough, he gives Carolina an imposing set of big men.
"Deon has come a long way," said Ellington, someone who would know about coming a long way. "With him, you have to watch the game to see those little things he's doing. It's fun to see him do things like that in areas where he has improved so much."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.
